Tag Archives: pickle jars

…Olive jars too. These are great storage devices that I come by, for free and with no dangers of bleeding toxins into the food I store in the refrigerator or freezer. You can freeze in glass jars if you don’t fill them full. I don’t do this much though as it defeats the purpose of having a freezer in the basement (or other, probably better location) because if you don’t fill them they take up space that is only full of air.

We all know the dangers of storing food in some plastic containers, right? Many of those containers have certain symbols and numbers on the bottom that tell us that they can store liquids or they should only store solid foods. Who knows all those number and symbols? I do, but mix them up in my head sometimes so, to be absolutely safe, I store liquids in pickle and olive glass jars that I have thoroughly cleaned and run through the dishwasher too.

I store my leftover broth, soups, chiles, and other one pot meals in these jars from time to time. And also entree’s like chicken alfredo with fettuccine noodles when there is a good quantity left over. I always store broth in these jars.

Also sausage drippings has a jar with it’s name on it in the refrigerator, and likewise a jar for bacon fat. These are in smaller glass jars that fit in the door nicely along side the ketchup and other condiments. Wide mouth jars allow for scooping out a teaspoon of bacon fat (which is about all you need in a recipe, right?) or sausage drippings when needed.

Yes, I have a lot of glass containers with plastic lids too, but sometimes there are just not enough of these to go around so my pickle and olive jars sit in the mud room and wait for me to need them. After all, they are free, clean, non-toxic and reusable. Recycling at it’s best. OH, you didn’t know this was about recycling? Maybe, in a sneaky way, it is. Heh.

But really, mostly it’s about safe food handling. We can follow all the rules while cooking but if we store our foods improperly, we may be harming our families, in the long run.

So, be safe, and if you, like me, mix up some of those symbols and numbers for plastic containers, just save a few pickle and olive jars and put those plastic containers in the recycle bin.